Start reading Coffin Dodgers on your Kindle in under a minute. Don't have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here.

Deliver to your Kindle or other device

 
 
 

Try it free

Sample the beginning of this book for free

Deliver to your Kindle or other device

Read books on your computer or other mobile devices with our FREE Kindle Reading Apps.
Coffin Dodgers
 
 

Coffin Dodgers [Kindle Edition]

Gary Marshall
4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (33 customer reviews)

Digital List Price: £0.99 What's this?
Kindle Price: £0.99 includes VAT* & free wireless delivery via Amazon Whispernet
Unlike print books, digital books are subject to VAT.


Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought


Product Description

Product Description

"A no-holds-barred thriller plot with a sense of the ridiculous, lacing nastiness with some delightfully black comedy" - The Big Issue Scotland

"You really can't afford to miss out on this" - Ray Banks, author of Sucker Punch and Beast of Burden

Coffin Dodgers is a fast, funny and fat-free thriller that's been compared to Christopher Brookmyre, Colin Bateman, Tim Dorsey, Carl Hiaasen and the films Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead.

Eighty is the new thirty. Nobody's having babies, the old massively outnumber the young and the hip crowd has become the hip replacement crowd. Twentysomething barman Matt Johnson would be bored senseless if someone wasn't trying to kill him.

When Matt isn't playing silly pranks on his elders with his colleague Dave or laughing at Dave's dating disasters, he's trying to summon up the courage to ask best friend Amy out on a date. Then Matt narrowly escapes a car wreck, and he discovers that his accident was no accident. Someone's murdering young people, and dozens are already dead. Can Matt, Amy and Dave stop the killings? The answer involves guns, gangsters, an angry bear and plenty of irate pensioners.

Product details


More About the Author

Gary Marshall
Discover books, learn about writers, and more.

Visit Amazon's Gary Marshall Page

What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?


Tags Customers Associate with This Product

 (What's this?)
Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
 

Your tags: Add your first tag
 

 

Customer Reviews

33 Reviews
5 star:
 (20)
4 star:
 (12)
3 star:
 (1)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.6 out of 5 stars (33 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Murder and comedy. Oh yes., 13 Jun 2011
By 
Squander Two (Northern Ireland) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Coffin Dodgers (Kindle Edition)
I've been reading and liking Gary Marshall's journalism for years. And here along comes his first novel, so I've read that too. And it's good.

The world is full of books which say "I laughed till I cried" on the cover but which turn out to be utterly unfunny when you read them. This is not one of those books. It is proper funny, and actually made me laugh.

It also contains murders and plots and mystery. The characters seem real, their dialogue is natural and believable. The prose goes straight from the page to your head without your having to think about reading, the way good writing does. And the book does a nice job of taking you a little way into a plausible future: not slamming loads of over-the-top high-tech nonsense into your face every paragraph but just gently reminding you from time to time that it's not quite the here-and-now.

I loved it.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No


9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Eighty is the new thirty, 18 Jun 2011
This review is from: Coffin Dodgers (Kindle Edition)
There has been a catastrophic collapse in the birth rate and an ageing population is taking it badly.

Sound familiar? If so, don't jump to conclusions. Gary Marshall's entertaining dystopian thriller is no Children of Men. His senior citizens are not just old. They're old and rich. The few children still being born are doomed to waste their youth pandering to the whims of a generation of geriatric baby boomers - not as care assistants but as barmen, croupiers and aromatherapists. Eighty is the new thirty.

This is Simon Pegg territory - Shaun of the Dead meets Hot Fuzz. The three twenty-something protagonists, Matt, Amy and Dave, work in a vast casino complex and spend their free time bitching and dreaming up juvenile practical jokes to play on their elders. A bowling green has Old Farts written across it in weed-killer; flagpoles marking the holes at a golf course are coated in anti-climb paint.

Then young people start dying is freak accidents - and always two at a time.

Marshall has chosen a difficult narrative mode for his story - first person, present tense and lots of wisecracks. With a less capable writer this would be a disaster - beginners sometimes try it because it looks accessible, but too often it exposes their lack of control over language and plot. Marshall is completely in control. The writing is neat and slick and each element of the story clicks effortlessly into place. The jokes - not laugh out loud gags, but good for a steady grin - are rooted in daily life: supermarkets, car parks, beer and the familiar hassles of singleton existence. Even the most bizarre-sounding incidents turn out to be based on reality. Dave takes a date to a restaurant where diners eat in the dark, served by blind waiters. Yes, there is one. Google "blind waiters".

The chatty tone could easily come to feel relentless, but Marshall varies the pace of the writing very effectively. There is a faint shadow of desperation behind the characters' good humour and beneath the banter the relationship between Matt and Amy is tender and sometimes moving. The grumpy policeman the trio try to enlist on their side is splendidly down-to-earth and the climax of the story is fast-paced and gripping.

He also resists the urge to over-explain. The novel is set in the near future. Most things are recognisable, but we learn in passing that newspapers are published on tablet computers - the characters tap to read the headlines. The internal combustion engine is a thing of the past, but we pick this up through casual references to batteries. This is very refreshing: Marshall trusts his readers to keep up, a tolerance too many sf writers need to learn.

An enjoyable first novel. But I hope that with the next one he will try something completely different. It's easy to get into a groove with this kind of book and it would be a shame to see that happen to such a capable writer.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No


5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Brisk and Barmy Banter, 2 Aug 2011
This review is from: Coffin Dodgers (Kindle Edition)
Gary Marshall's COFFIN DODGERS might take place in the future, but it's one very similar to our own, where young men and women trade banter over beer and video games and work dead-end jobs. Of course these twentysomethings happen to be the minority in a world run and primarily occupied by the eponymous coffin dodgers. And that minority is apparently under attack ...

Marshall is one of those few comic novelists who manage to keep both a plot and the gags coming thick and fast. His is an informal, bantering style, and his characters are eminently charming - which tough to pull off, believe me. At this price (and even the price it'll go up to when the summer days are gone), you really can't afford to miss out on this.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 
Was this review helpful to you? Yes No

Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
 Go to Amazon.com to see all 8 reviews  4.6 out of 5 stars 
Were these reviews helpful?   Let us know
 
 
Most Recent Customer Reviews











Only search this product's reviews



Customer Discussions

This product's forum
Discussion Replies Latest Post
When's the next one coming out? 3 19 Jul 2011
See all discussions...  
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
 


Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
   
Related forums


Look for similar items by category


Look for similar items by subject





i.e., each title must be in subject 1 AND subject 2 AND ...

Amazon Media EU S.à r.l. GB Privacy Statement Amazon Media EU S.à r.l. GB Delivery Information Amazon Media EU S.à r.l. GB Returns & Exchanges